1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an automatic feeding apparatus with a sheet-input assisting mechanism, and more particularly to a sheet-input assisting mechanism driven by a power source, and an automatic feeding apparatus using the sheet-input assisting mechanism to stabilize the conveyance of sheets.
2. Related Art
In a conventional sheet-fed scanner, if no special device is disposed on a paper supply tray for pinching paper sheets or restricting the drifting thereof (especially for used fluffy, thin sheets), skewing of the paper sheets may occur. Some high-end scanners or printers therefore would have sheet stabilizing and assisting devices or pressers to overcome the problems.
For example, the so-called gravity type presser presses the sheet by its own weight. However, if the presser is too heavy, the thin sheets being pressed will not be able to move forward and advance to the next stage. If the presser is too light, it cannot effectively press the fluffy or thin sheets and cannot prevent or correct the skew.
China Patent No. CN101254864B (also published as US2008/203652) discloses a presser driven by a motor for pressing paper sheets placed on the paper supply tray. The resilient pressing force of the presser, unlike the above-mentioned prior art, is adjustable. However, the design is complicated. The presser is linked to the motor through a plurality of components (including a compression spring, a torsion spring, a rotatable link, and etc.) disposed underneath the paper supply tray and has to cooperate with these components in order to execute the paper pressing function. In such a configuration where many components are used to relay the motor control to the presser, the driving force of the motor cannot be promptly transmitted to the presser and a delay in the execution may thus take place.